Here are a few notes for the Recording Industry Association of America, which apparently believes that MP3's are evil, Internet streaming should be charged high fees to help them pay the artists, and that $15 is a reasonable price for a CD.

I recently listened to an Internet radio stream and heard a song by Abandoned Pools that I liked. I went to their website, where I was able to download the song I'd heard, along with another one. I thought, "Hey, I kinda like this. Maybe I'll look for their CD."

I then went to Target and found the CD there. For some reason, it was only $10. I decided that was a reasonable price to pay for a new artist release, and I bought it. I've listened to it quite a bit in the weeks following.

Some points:

1. I probably never would have heard of Abandoned Pools without Internet radio.
2. I liked being able to download the MP3 directly from their site without any DRM or fees.
3. I considered buying the CD (and actually went to a store to do so) because of the above.
4. Because the price was only $10, I bought the CD. I probably wouldn't have bought it if it were $15, because I'm cheap like that.
5. If all CDs were $10, I'd likely buy twice as many as I do now. 2x * 10 > x * 15, every day of the week.

How exactly did this hurt the recording industry? An additional sale thanks to the Internet.

Another story. When I got home from lunch today, I found that someone had eaten one of my Sting CDs. She also likes DVDs, but this was an astounding level of destruction compared to that. Little tiny CD pieces everywhere, some of which she might have swallowed for all I know.

I won't be buying another copy of that CD because I have 192Khz MP3s of it on my hard drive. If I want to hear the music that I have purchased the right to listen to, I can still hear it. Despite the original media being in about 45 pieces at the bottom of the kitchen trash can.

Of course, I could have sent the destroyed media to A & M Records and maybe they would have replaced it, as many software companies will do with damaged CD-ROMs. But I seriously doubt it.

I have money and would like to spend it on entertainment that I enjoy, but I feel like a chump doing it under the current setup, because the people running the show are clearly out to screw me. It would be nice to be thought of as a customer and not a criminal.